The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department
(Victoria Atkins)
...These events are a stark reminder that serious violence is a
continuing threat. There is no single or simple answer, and the
police, local authorities, Police and Crime Commissioners and
others are working with us, taking action on a number of fronts,
locally, regionally and nationally, in the immediate term and in
the longer term....
...We are working closely with Police and Crime Commissioners,
including the Mayor of London, the police and other partners to
tackle violence and to save lives. We remain determined to
protect the public and to stop more lives being taken, but
Members will appreciate that there is no short cut to tackling
serious violence...
...On the spending review, we are working across Government to
ensure that we have a cross-governmental spending review
programme to help the children who are not just most at risk of
serious violence, but have other forms of vulnerabilities, which,
sadly, I have to deal with in my brief, including, for example,
domestic abuse. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand
that I cannot go into the specifics of the spending review at the
moment, but the fact that we have seen an increase this year of
more than £1 billion, including the £100 million in the spring
statement, and that we have the help of Police and Crime
Commissioners, is a firm statement of intention by the Home
Secretary and the Government. I thank him again for his urgent
question.
...Action we have taken in the past 12 month includes: the
serious violence taskforce, chaired by the Home Secretary and
attended by the Mayor of London; the ministerial taskforce,
chaired by the Prime Minister, to drive cross-governmental
action; the establishment of the national county lines
co-ordination centre, which has seen more than 1,000 arrests and
more than 1,300 people safeguarded; the Offensive Weapons Act
2019, which is tightening the law on knives, acids and firearms,
including through knife crime prevention orders; Operation
Sceptre, which has been rolled out by police forces in weeks of
action, the most recent of which saw nearly 11,000 knives taken
off the streets; the anti-knife crime community fund, which funds
small local projects—68 of them last year; the £22 million early
intervention youth fund, funding 29 projects across the country;
the #knifefree national media campaign, which has had more than 6
million views and 20,000 teachers receiving lesson plans in June;
investing in Redthread intervention work in A&E departments
in London, Birmingham and Nottingham; setting up the £200 million
youth endowment fund; closing the public health duty consultation
at the end of this month—and we are responding as quickly as we
can; setting up an independent review on drugs; commissioning and
receiving voluntary commitments from major retailers to prevent
the under-age sale of knives in stores and online; giving more
than £1 billion extra to the police this year, including £100
million from the serious violence and with the help
of Police and Crime Commissioners; making it
easier for officers to use section 60 stop-and-search powers;
investing £96 million to support victims and witnesses, through
the Ministry of Justice; and supporting a new national police
capability to tackle gang-related activity on social media...
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